No Nipples Policy

Dearest festival community!

Patriarchal power structures are to blame:
Not everyone can be equally naked in everyday life. This injustice must be abolished. In solidarity, we celebrate for 4 festival days with NO NIPPLES POLICY at the bars.

(It's about cis-male nudity)

Please leave your shirt on on stages and dance floors. Be sensitive & check whether people in the vicinity feel disturbed. If you are asked to put something on: Please do so without discussion.

• naked upper body ≠ naked upper body
• naked breast read as female = risk
• male read bare chest = huh? quite normal?

You want to deal with this social bias? You can, for example:

• click on this link (for QAs, short video, "men in bikinis", glossary of difficult words and context),
• do your own research on the internet (recommended!)
• discuss with your peers.

For capacity reasons, the bar staff unfortunately cannot respond to such discussions, but you should not remain alone with your concerns.

Have a look at the awareness tent! There you can stock up on material or ask a productive question or two (after you've worked through the Q&A conscientiously). If you have any other suggestions on how to approach the topic of sexism, please let us know!

NO NIPPLES Q&A

• "Topless men are also sexualized"

Most men don't have to face...

• • Stigmatization (e.g. being easy to have, attention-seeking)
  • an unpleasant look/stare
  • Sayings and comments (harassment)
  • Risk of being physically assaulted ("she has to expect that if she walks around like that")
  • Risk of being secretly recorded and published on porn sites (this has happened at explicitly left-wing festivals (Monis Rache & Fusion): Cameras in showers & toilets)

...fear. This is in stark contrast to the experiences and fears that female-read people have or must have.

• "This festival should be a free space for everyone"
• • real freedom only exists if it applies to ALL and not just 50% (because: see above)

• "It was the same at Fusion and it was a disaster"

• • A few people are always bothered when the privileges they are used to are restricted, even if only for 5 minutes (cf. compulsory masks). These people complain the loudest, while the part that understands, accepts, supports and complies with the measures out of solidarity remains quiet.
  • It is quite normal that it initially feels like a blatant curtailment of one's freedom when familiar privileges are restricted, even in a small area and for a short time.
  • has been enforced at Fusion for years and at Klangtherapie 2023 and it worked!

• Isn't #freethenipple our real goal?

• • YES! But only possible in the utopia that we are working towards together here step by step (because see above)

• "Women should emancipate themselves, courageously stand up for themselves and simply be topless"

• In an ideal world, this is possible, but the reality is different. (Marginalized groups can free themselves from their position if the privileged group becomes aware of their privileges and shows solidarity.

• Above all, however, oppressed groups are not themselves responsible for carrying out the educational and awareness-raising work that would lead to normalization.
• Normalization through "simply being courageous":
  At what cost and at whose expense?! (see the dangers above)

By the way:

You can findmore content and context on e.g. space-demanding upper bodies, men (or people read as male) in bikinis, objectification, catcalling and street harassment and and and here.

Techno - love - utopia

Your awareness team <3

If you have any questions, comments or simply want to get in touch with our awareness team, please send us an e-mail at: awareness@klangtherapie-festival.de

Glossary

Privilege

A privilege is a disproportionate advantage over other people (groups) that is not 100% deserved. A privilege exists as soon as people have structural privileges and advantages due to group affiliations or attributions that were not (entirely) acquired through their own performance or special qualifications. Conversely, these socially granted opportunities to act are denied or made more difficult for others. Privileges therefore always create disadvantages for others. In a privileged position, the privileged shape the norm and are often unaware of their privilege.

Gender read (being read as female/male)

The read gender is the gender that other people ascribe to a person based on their appearance and behavior. Accordingly, a person who is read as female is a person who is perceived or read by others as a woman. However, this does not mean that this person also feels female or identifies as a woman.

Sexism

Sexism refers to various forms of discrimination against people based on their gender. The term sexism also stands for the underlying ideology that defines and hierarchizes gender roles. The manifestations of sexism are culturally and historically determined. Sexism is particularly evident in the marginalization of women, transgender, non-binary and intergender people.

Structural discrimination

Structural disadvantages are forms of discrimination that arise through the interaction of individual, cultural and institutional levels. The individual level of discrimination comprises discriminatory speech and actions by individuals. The cultural level of discrimination consists of knowledge, values and norms of the respective culture. The institutional level of discrimination is mediated by discriminatory policies and laws as well as norms and values enforced by institutions.

This 3-level structure has grown over centuries of coexistence. As a rule, it goes hand in hand with patriarchal, homophobic, religious - or any other kind of justified - customs and traditions. Structural discrimination is not always easy to recognize. Existing and familiar structures are often not questioned and are not even recognized as discriminatory by those affected.

Patriarchal customs and traditions

Make the privileged position of a single (male) group or the inferior position of all others appear "normal" and predetermined. E.g. in the division of labor, distribution of decision-making powers, urban planning and everywhere else.

Utopia

A utopia is understood as a draft of a possible, desired, future way of life or social order.

Sexual objectification

Sexual objectification is the reduction of (especially FLINTA*) people to their physical characteristics - with a sexual focus. It does not matter what the person concerned wants, for example whether they want to be viewed sexually or become the object of sexual fantasies. The person concerned is turned into an object of desire or a sex object and their subject status is denied.

FLINTA*

FLINTA* is an abbreviation/acronym and stands for women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, transgender, agenderpeople. The term thus includes all those affected by patriarchal disadvantage and discrimination - i.e. all non-cis men.

Catcalling

Catcalling is a form of sexual harassment in which a person is made the object of desire. Catcalls come in many different forms, e.g. calling or whistling after someone, but also honking, making stupid comments, noises or other unwanted remarks.

Street harassment (harassment on the street)

Catcalling is a form of street harassment. Street harassment also refers to other behavior that violates boundaries, such as (gender-specific) insults, chasing, coming very close, touching, taking photos or videos without consent, etc. In general, any form of unwanted behavior directed at someone by a stranger in public counts as harassment.

Rape culture

The term rape culture stands for the systematic sexualization of FLINTA* people, as well as the systematic sexualized violence, sexual harassment and rape of FLINTA* people. This also includes rape jokes, victim blaming and the normalization of slut-shaming, sexual harassment, etc. in films, in the media and in real life. This behavior towards FLINTA* people occurs so frequently and sometimes publicly that it is perceived as "normal" in our society and meets with acceptance, which in turn contributes to rape culture.

Consent or consensus

Only YES!!! means yes! This means that a "maybe", "I don't know", "not really" and similar are not active consents = NO. Asking for or actively expressing consent can be very unfamiliar. We are often wrong when we unthinkingly infer from ourselves to others or tacitly assume what someone (does not) want. The following therefore applies: consensus is the active agreement of all those involved - non-verbally or verbally. The people involved are engaged in a transparent process to create a joint solution. Consensus is a method for reflecting and communicating personal needs, boundaries and wishes and is therefore intimate and sau sexy.

Othering

Othering describes the process in which people are constructed as supposedly different or "foreign" because of certain characteristics and are reduced to this "foreignness". A group is constructed on the basis of an assumed or actual affiliation in terms of "race", religion, culture, etc. This group is assigned certain characteristics and behaviors. Certain characteristics and behaviors are attributed to this group, which in turn are transferred to the individual. These attributions are accompanied by a devaluation of the supposed "others" (or also valorization: exoticism) and serve to define one's own group, the "we", to declare it as the norm and to valorize it.

Sexualization

In general, sexualization means that someone is placed in relation to sexuality. In other words, a person's sexuality and gender are placed in the foreground and reduced to this. They are perceived and treated as sexual objects.